Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Last April 28th, my previous tutor in the Philippines visited Korea. She had stayed for 10 days, until May 9th. She was my tutor when I was in the Philippines as an exchange student in 2008. I couldn't believe she can come to Korea to meet me, as well as her other students. Since she is a host in UNTV channel, she also had to shoot Korean cultures and sceneries. She stayed in Seoul for few days. I got a day-off on a Friday, and I visited Seoul to see her. She had to participate in an interview at the Philippine embassy, near Noksapyung station.

To meet her, I got up early on Friday morning, I ran to Daejeon Station to take a train to Seoul. However, I was late, the train had passed by in front of me. I couldn't get on. I couldn't but to buy a ticket for the next train to Seoul. After having hard time to travel to Seoul, finally, I met teacher Gie, with her colleagues. It had been almost 2 years since we last saw in the Philippines. It was really nice to see her.

The people who were with T.Gie were taking a video for her program. I was also in there, as a tour-guide. They told me I would be on TV too. We walked to, "The war memorial museum of Korea". It was my first time to see it. In front of the museum, on a big square ground, there were some armies marching. Every Friday 2pm, they are having a big march. When we were there, they were practicing in preparation to the performance. After watching it, we went inside. It was open to everybody for free. There were many memorial things such as: old weapons, clothes, name tags and miniatures describing some Korean wars. I saw, "Turtle ship" model. It was awesome. Though I had no much knowledge about Korean history, I tried to explain some exhibitions to the Philippines. We had lunch after touring inside museum.

After that, we visited Citi bank to change my bankbook.The bank where we went was the headquarters ( main branch) of "Citi bank ", so it was very big and high. We rode an elevator and went up to almost 20th floor. T. Gie wanted to open a saving account in the bank, but she couldn't.

Anyway T.gie and I went out and took a taxi to go to Nam san Tower. The taxi driver took us to the terminal of cable car. We bought two round tickets for the cable car. Finally, we went up to the tower and met other fellows. All together we went up to the observatory. With the telescope in the observatory, we observed the whole city; Seoul. They all liked it.

While we are resting, James contacted me, who was an exchange student in the Philippines with me. He was told T.gie came to Korea, so he is coming to see us. We met him at Seoul station, and went to Shinchon, near Leehwa women's university. And for having dinner, we went to a restaurant serving shabu shabu noodle. We had a great time having dinner. After dinner, we separated, James went his place to his friends, I went to my friend's house and T.gie together with Rustan went to theirs.

The next day, I was at the Children's grand park with my friend. Since it was really sunny day and the place was near her house, we couldn't help going there. We took a lot of pictures in front of flowers, a big fountain, and other good places with various themes. My friend treated me late lunch at the Outback. We were full after eating the delicious foods: spaghetti and salad.

Afterwards, I was supposed to meet my sister, Christine; to meet T.gie in Uijeongbu. We met at Namdaemoon, the South gate and got on a subway, line number 1. It took us there about 40 minutes to go to Uijeonbu station. Some guys welcomed us and took us to their place. There were some more Filipinos . We greeted and had dinner together. T.gie, Christine, and I went to a motel to spend the night. We had some conversations and got tired, so we fell asleep. The place we were staying was little bit dry, so we had difficulties sleeping.

On Sunday, the next day, we had shooting with VANK members. Actually, I didn’t know what VANK is. There were around 8 Koreans who were acting as VANK members. They were only high school students, but they were really good at English. And it made me surprised and proud. But it also made me downcast because I thought they are better than me regarding English speaking skills though, I’m working in Hagwan as an English teacher.

I was interviewed about my experiences in the Philippines last 2008, . But I didn’t organize my thought so I regret little bit. Anyway, it was good experience in the Philippines. When I was there, I met T.gie who is caring for me like my real mom.

We had great time in Seoul, and we went to Dondaemoon, the East gate, to buy some clothes for Christine. Because she will be shooting with a very feminine clothes in a music video. It took about 4 hours to choose to fit the concept for the music video. I got very tired and it was time to come back home. So I just took out my hamburger set from the Lotetteria. I brought it KTX and ate while I was traveling to Daejeon.

Staying in Seoul was very tiring, but it was really good to meet many people, especially, T. gie, in Korea. I hope she’ll come back to Korea again with God's blessing. Thank you anyway!